NGC 2264, The Cone Nebula, The Christmas Tree Cluster,
and the Fox Fur Nebula.
This is a region of space that's fascinated me since I was a kid and
saw it on the front of Nigel Calders' book, 'Violent Universe'
It can be found in the constellation of Monoceros, and is part of a much
larger H-alpha rich region, which also includes the Rosette nebula.
The Christmas tree cluster can easily be seen in a small telescope, and
when seen without the surrounding cloud, does look very much like a Christmas
tree.
If you look at this image upside down you'll see it.
The Cone nebula is at the bottom, and is about 7 light years long.
The Fox Fur nebula is in the centre right of the image, and is well named
I think.
I tried to image this for the first time in late 2007, when I'd first
got my Atik 16HR, and was surprised how faint the nebula was.
At the time, I binned my subs 2x2 to increase sensitivity, but was never
happy with the resultant lack of resolution.
In 2008 I wanted to have a go with unbinned subs, so, if I wanted a decent
signal to noise ratio, I knew I'd need more subs.
This was imaged on the 7th, 9th,10th,11th & 12th December 2008.
It was awarded joint picture of the week on StargazersLounge for Christmas
week, 2008.
My first Christmas No.1!!
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Click on image below
for full size version
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Telescope. William Optics ZS80FD .with 0.63x focal reducer.
Camera. Atik 16HR,
All subs are 8 minutes unbinned.
Ha is red, OIII is blue
Green was synthesised with Noels' actions.
Ha was also used as a luminance layer.
Ha x 80
OIII x 18
Total integration time. 13 hours 4 minutes
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